more about it.
Kind of plain,
But it’s pretty hard to tell you for you to know right now.
Takes time.
Then you will see.
He then stated, “That’s all. No more stories. Do you understand?” Shocked and saddened, I replied, “Sort of.”
It was a relief to hear that Harry had expected me to listen to his stories many times before drawing any conclusions. He stressed that they contained hidden messages and connections that would take time to decipher. I reflected on how passionately he had told his stories about whites and how quickly I had dismissed these as anomalies. Harry’s comments suggested that he may have had more of a prior plan than I realized.
At this stage, however, there were more pressing concerns for all of us than analyzing the deeper meanings of his stories. Harry was growing weaker by the day. In desperation, he finally asked his neighbour, Carrie Allison, to call an ambulance. He was quickly admitted to the Princeton Hospital. After several months of treatment, he had improved enough to be discharged. But it was now clear to everyone that he was not well enough to live at home by himself. As he and Matilda had had no children, he was unable to draw on immediate family members for assistance. So he moved to Pine Acres Home, a seniors’ residence operated by the Westbank Indian Band.
Institutionalized living, however, did not agree with him. Many of the residents were suffering from dementia so he could not carry on conversations with them. And he missed the familiarity of the Similkameen Valley. After a year, he transferred to Mountainview Manor, a seniors’ complex located in the heart of Keremeos. He was happier there in a self-contained, ground-floor unit which felt more like home. His band also provided twenty-four hour home care which gave him a continuous sense of companionship and support. As with his earlier routine, he slept during most of the daytime hours and sat up all night. Worried about his digestive system, he ate almost nothing. I visited regularly and he continued to tell stories. But the old vigour and enthusiasm were diminishing.
There was one project during this period that kept his spirits high, however. In 1984 while he was living at Pine Acres Home, we began discussing the possibility of turning his stories into a book. He felt that the book should be widely disseminated throughout “all Province in Canada and United States, that is when it comes to be a Book” (letter, 27 January 1986). The project kept his mind occupied. And it also gave him a set of daily goals as he struggled to think of gaps. The best part was that it inspired him to tell more stories.
Many of these new stories focussed on his life history. He was very proud of his ranching experiences and wanted some of these to be included in the book: “I get to started feed stock from 2nd Jan. 1917 till 1972,” he wrote on 15 May 1985. “50 years I feed cattle without missed a day in feeding season rain or shine. snowing or Blazirt. Sunday’s. holirdays. funeral day. any other time … 50 winter’s that should worth to be on Book if is not too late.”
Harry explained that he was twelve years old when he got his first paying job. It was with a crew of workers hired to thresh wheat and oats at Ashnola. He recalled every detail of the experience—driving the horses, cleaning up the straw, pushing all the grain into place, and piling it into baskets. Unfortunately, he hated it so much that he quit after a couple of months to try another job—pitching hay for fifty cents a day. When he quit the second job after just a few months, his mother, Arcell, took him aside, and scolded him for his poor work habits. She must have made an impact because he recalled that he took his next jobs as ranch hands much more seriously. The first of these was with family friend, Indian Edward, who gave him his first horse as payment for his work. Under Edward’s tutelage, Harry quickly became a skilled horseman and cattle hand.
Harry spoke constantly of horses and their place in his early life. “Those days the horses was a big business because no tractor, no truck, no nothing but only team of horses. And saddle horse and wagon and buggy. Use the buggy to go to town, kinda fancy. Wagon, more like a tractor, trailer, something. Heavy work, hauling rails, hauling hay, hauling something heavy with the horses.” Among his most poignant memories was the 1930s government campaign to exterminate the wild herds that roamed through the Similkameen.
He obtained his first ranch in December 1924, through his marriage to Matilda Johnny, a widow. Together Harry and Matilda established a good working relationship—buying, selling, and trading cows and horses. They bought and sold property until they had four large ranches between Chopaka and Ashnola. At one point, Harry employed a large crew to assist with his sixty horses and 150 head of cattle.
After Matilda’s death in 1971, Harry cut his ranching operation back to fifty head of cattle. A nagging hip injury forced him to retire completely two years later. He sold all of his ranches and rented a bungalow owned by his longtime friends, Carrie and Slim Allison. The hip injury turned out to be a good thing for his storytelling. Although he had spent lots of time listening to his grandmother and her contemporaries tell stories, he did not begin to tell stories until he was immobilized by the injury. While running his ranches, he simply had no time to sit for hours telling stories. “When I get older,” he explained, “and nothing I can do but tell stories.” He explained that the stories all came back to him much like “pictures” going by.
Many of these dated back to his early childhood when he was left for long periods to assist his blind grandmother, Louise Newhmkin. Among the stories of her family history was a special one about her aunt from Brewster, Washington, who married a prominent white man, John P. Curr. Harry’s grandmother adored this uncle whom she described as a highly respected “government man.” Curr had lived with the Okanagan Indians for five years until his Okanagan wife died. Louise passed on many of Curr’s stories to Harry. One of the most heart-rending stories chronicled the vigilante style murder of a prominent Similkameen chief by two members of Curr’s brigade in the 1830s.10
By now I had assembled a representative sample of stories for the book. I had hoped that Harry would assist with this, but he declined: “That’s really up to you,” he wrote in a letter of 27 January 1986. “Don’t have to ask me about it. I wrote the some of it or I mention on tape and you do the rest of the work. The stories is worked by Both of us you and I.” I included Harry’s story about the creation of the world and the twins as well as his account of God’s visit to Lytton. Along with a selection of Coyote stories, I included a number of stories about early and more recent human encounters with their shoo-MISH. I concluded the volume with a selection of historical narratives dealing with Aboriginal interactions with whites. Unfortunately the publication process took more time than we expected. By 1987, Harry was worried that he might not live to see the release of the book: “Im in Hospital but I can’t write…. We might see that Book yet I hope. Its all moste 2 years since we got start about that Book. Please let me know all you have know about for that Book” (letter, 8 March 1987).
Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller was finally released in late October 1989.11 The timing was perfect. Harry was frail but able to study the book’s contents. He was also well enough to attend the book launch celebration on 13 November in Keremeos. From his wheelchair, he was feted by a crowd of approximately one hundred friends and relatives, some of whom had come from distant points in Washington State. In addition to signing books, he made speeches, sang, and played his drum. In return, the local drumming group performed in his honour. This was his last formal outing. Harry died just over two months later on 25 January 1990.
Harry was very pleased with the book. His only concern was that it had not included all of his stories. I explained that we had recorded too many stories for one single volume and that presenting his words in poetic form had also consumed extra space. With Harry’s concerns in mind, however, I moved quickly to assemble a second volume of stories. Entitled Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller,12
